My App was pirated - what should i do?

One week after it hit the App Store, i found links to illegal copies of my first iPhone App.

I have no experience with this kind of thing.
I know i can't prevent it anymore (now that it's circulating), but maybe someone knows how to make it more difficult for them next time? I have another project in the works that I've invested over 10 months hard work, and I rather not have this happen again, if there is a way to prevent it.

I did ask the host to remove the links from his site, but it's probably on 10 other sites by now. Ideas?

I'm a bit amazed they'd bother to pirate a $.99 cent app, but I guess that's the world we live in

Check if the iPhone SDK provides a way of checking with Apple if a particular Apple ID (which you should have access to in the application) has purchased your application..

Phoning home in your app would be useless since you don't have a list of people who've purchase your app so I think the onus is on Apple to provide this feature if it isn't already available..

Regards

Sorry

Hey
I apologise for not having anything particularly constructive, as such, to say, but - is this pirating for jailbroken phones? (Don't worry - I have no plans to A: jailbrake, or B: pirate).
What was the name of the app? Can't help you with advice, so might have to help you out by buying a copy!
Peace

ajdb9 said:

Hey
I apologise for not having anything particularly constructive, as such, to say, but - is this pirating for jailbroken phones? (Don't worry - I have no plans to A: jailbrake, or B: pirate).
What was the name of the app? Can't help you with advice, so might have to help you out by buying a copy!
Peace

Click to expand...

SunGPS: iTunes Store

Haven't tested the pirated download - I don't use jailbreak

Raz0rEdge said:

Check if the iPhone SDK provides a way of checking with Apple if a particular Apple ID (which you should have access to in the application) has purchased your application..

Phoning home in your app would be useless since you don't have a list of people who've purchase your app so I think the onus is on Apple to provide this feature if it isn't already available..

Regards

Click to expand...

Off-by-One Mobile: In App Purchase and the state of iPhone piracy

I will not go into details here. All the information can be easily found online, and I don’t want to get in the sights of DMCA zealots.

iPhone applications are encrypted and signed. However, on jailbroken phones, crackers can easily dump the unencrypted data from memory while the application is running. A small modification of the Info.plist file of the bundle will then allow unencrypted applications to run on a jailbroken iPhone.

Several automated scripts that do the whole cracking process have been released in the past.

Custom anti-piracy protections

Apple offers no official methods for developers to detect pirated applications. However, several ways to detect the artifacts of the cracking process have been documented (link, link ). The simplest one is to detect if the Info.plist has been modified as indicated in the previous section. Applications can act on the detection of piracy by reverting to a lite version or stop working altogether.

Click to expand...

to late

That is a shame and I know this is a big discussion on the iPhone development forums I've visited..each developer trying to come up with some ingenious way to protect their hard work..

It was probably short-sighted of Apple to not imagine that someone would find a way of breaking open the iPhone OS to look at what's happening underneath the surface and pirate apps, but hopefully now that jailbreaking is a known thing, they will figure something out to protect the developers..

Regards

Indeed. I hope upcoming devices and the next iPhone OS might help fighting piracy.

Somehow I don't think this would be as much of a problem if the App Store had a built in trial period that would let you fiddle with paid apps for a short while before you had to purchase it. I know a lot of people don't want to pay for an app that may or may not do what they're looking for. A dollar here and a dollar there eventually adds up to serious money.

Kash said:

Somehow I don't think this would be as much of a problem if the App Store had a built in trial period that would let you fiddle with paid apps for a short while before you had to purchase it. I know a lot of people don't want to pay for an app that may or may not do what they're looking for. A dollar here and a dollar there eventually adds up to serious money.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I sometimes look for a certain kind of application and find 10 of them from different developers. Buying 10 $2 applications just to find the one I find easiest to use is kinda silly. Just like with the normal mac applications, there should be a trial period to get the feel of the application.

Until recently Apple didn't suppose in-app purchases, so there was no way to release a "feeler" version of the app and support upgrading to a full version. The way around this was the use of the lite version of apps..but that's mainly for games as far as I could see..

With the new addition one, perhaps people will start using it and allow people to try things out before purchasing it..

Regards

What's the app? What does it do? What's it called? And why pirate it if it is only $0.99?

VIC20 said:

SunGPS: iTunes Store

Haven't tested the pirated download - I don't use jailbreak

Click to expand...

It is SunGPS, above
One of the top 20 weather apps

The Pirates released a new Crack-App last week

No more copy protection at all! The "isApplicationGenuine" check is cracked.

I wouldn't worry about it mate. Logically speaking, the people who crack apps or pirate apps, would never have been a paying customer in the first place. So it's not like you're losing anything technically speaking.

You'll still make the same exact amount of money you would have, regardless. I hope you understand my point. Pirating will always exist. I wouldn't waste time worrying about it. And even if Apple did wrangle up some ingenious anti piracy technique, my point still stands. Those people who were pirating, but whom are no longer capable, STILL aren't going to purchase an app they wanted to pirate in the first place.

Maybe there is a small percentage who MIGHT, but not enough of a percentage to make a significant difference IMHO.

And before anybody decides to give me a speech about morals and principle's etc.. save it. You'd be preaching to the choir. I'm not arguing about what is ethical. We all know what ethics are. Some just choose to ignore them, which is my point and not worth trying to get into a debate about. Alright ya tree huggin' hippies ? ;D

Doug

If there would be no piracy people would buy the Apps. They might install a lot of Apps just because they are "free" - but they bought an iPhone and want Apps (otherwise they would not install pirated Apps) so they would buy if they had no other choice. They ARE hurting sales, maybe not my sales but the sales of those Apps they really like.

Finally after I've sent a FAX, they deleted one of the downloads

My only suggestion is to incorporate something right in the app that pleads your case (maybe in the pref, or the help file -- someplace where the user will eventually see it) and thanks legitimate users.

Pointing out to users that you are a small developer and that pirating the app hurts your ability to develop the app/make more apps tends to make pirates (some of them, anyway) think twice. Treating them like adults who just need a reminder instead of crooks who must be crushed seems to work better IME.

PS. Don't make it a notice that appears EVERY TIME an app is launched. The annoyance factor will trump all over the "respect" factor!

Wow. This is something Apple needs to focus on a little more. This looks like a very good app to have (legally of course, from the App Store), I'll talk to my Dad to see if I can get it (he prefers I get free Apps from the App Store). Is there a Lite version? Doesn't appear to be.

And FYI: I believe jailbreaking is rather stupid, and I don't pirate or jailbreak.

After all the pirating, the sales are absolutely down now. I've set it to FREE but not for a long time (to avoid creating to much traffic). Have fun with it.

Chris H. said:

Wow. This is something Apple needs to focus on a little more.

And FYI: I believe jailbreaking is rather stupid, and I don't pirate or jailbreak.

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Two things.

1. Apple and devs would be better served by allowing EVERY app to be downloaded for free for at least 5 days and then expire unless you buy it. Full versions, not lite versions.

2. Jailbreaking is rather stupid why? Because YOU don't do it ? Sorry but... the only thing stupid is calling something stupid which you have no knowledge of. If you don't understand why people do it and would still rather talk about it without that knowledge, that's just plain ignorance and naivete.

I can think of several reasons as to why someone would Jailbreak, and it has NOTHING to do with pirating ANYTHING. I'll give you one primary reason. I bought my iPhone in the U.S. I now live in Hungary. Do you reeeeally think that I'm going to buy yet another iPhone for EU, or do you think I'm going to unlock my current phone for use ?

I know of no other company like Apple who refuses to acknowledge that people tend to do things like I did, for just that reason and none other. Every other phone in the world (ie; normal phones/smart phones) is able to be unlocked via an unlock code given to them by their carrier when traveling over seas. But the iPhone ? Oooh nooo, you have to jump through hoops for such a BASIC and SIMPLE task.

Let's see, what else. Oh yeah.. tethering actually WORKS ! ATT allows their Blackberry users to tether... as part of the package price. But the iPhone ?NOOOooooOo. And why ? Because what.. there are such an incredible amount of iPhone users that it's going to clog up ATT's networks ? Nah.. It's a bit more political and financially based than that me thinks.

In the end, I still stand by what I said in my other post. People *no matter the age* whom don't want to pay for something, are not going to pay for something. The ONLY way an iPhone user can be "forced" to pay for something is if Apple took away every single free app out there, and also blocked hackers/pirates.

Neither thing is going to happen. Believe me, the Apple crowd isn't afraid to spend money on things. If apps aren't selling, it's because it's not advertised correctly, or people just aren't interested. This is the same thing which applies to people who buy music/pirate music.

Me personally, before I ever buy something, I sample what I'm thinking of buying. I like it, I buy it. End of story. There are of course certain bands whom I'm automatically going to support because they've never proven themselves to be anything less than what I've expected them to be, and am not afraid to take a chance on them. But as someone just said above.. spend a dollar here, a dollar there.. and it all adds up. And while the dollars leave the wallet, it's very possible that the apps are deleted from the iPhone because they're not as good or cracked up to be as they had wanted.

Such as life.

Doug